Dr Syed Mohammad Meesum holds a PhD in Theoretical Computer Science from The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, HBNI, Chennai. He is interested in understanding the limits to which algorithms for solving problems can be improved to run faster. His primary area of research involves designing approximate and parameterised algorithms.

Dr Meesum did his undergraduate studies in Physics at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he graduated with an Integrated MSc. He also gained corporate experience as a derivative analyst at Futures First trading Euro-Dollar interest rate futures. Subsequently, he joined IMSc for an Integrated PhD programme, where his doctoral thesis was titled Matrix Editing via Multivariate Lens.

Following his PhD, Dr Meesum was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, University of Wrocław, Poland where he was supported by the Polish National Science Centre grant. He is an amateur astronomer by passion, and enjoys solving mathematical puzzles.